Hiding the Miraculous
by quicksilversquared
Summary: People have finally started to notice that Marinette is always wearing the same pair of earrings no matter what outfit she has on, and she's worried that someone might start getting suspicious. She has to throw people off somehow. But how is she supposed to do that?


Marinette had never been one to be very self-conscious about her appearance. Chloe had been the only one to ever make any disparaging comments towards her, and Marinette had known full well not to take her seriously. She was confident in her own design skills, especially after winning several design competitions, and she knew full well that she wasn't at all unattractive (after all, people talked about Ladybug all the time and never said a bad word about her appearance, and she _was_ Ladybug).

But right now? Marinette was feeling more than a little self-conscious, and it was all because Chloe had pointed out (loudly, in a _very_ condescending voice) that Marinette's earrings didn't match her outfit.

"That's not the first time someone's brought that up, actually," Marinette told Tikki as she sat in her room. One hand went up to fiddle with the simple black studs in her ears. "People are starting to notice that I don't _ever_ match my earrings to my outfits. I can get away with it when I'm just wearing casual outfits at school, but it's going to be summer soon and I _always_ wear these fun summer dresses and last summer I wore fun earrings with them. Alya doesn't notice because she didn't know me then, but Mylène and Rose will probably ask."

"You can't take off the Miraculous for that long, Marinette," Tikki reminded Marinette, as though she could forget _that_. "If they're not on you for too long, or if you get too far away from the Miraculous, your connection to them could fade and even break, and then _you_ could get akumatized if you get upset about something."

"I know, I know, I wouldn't take them off," Marinette said with a sigh. "It's just... how long will it be until someone realizes that I look like Ladybug and that I never take my earrings off? Like, if they put the pieces together, that would be _really_ bad." She slouched and pouted slightly. "...and I know he probably isn't Hawkmoth and all since he _did_ get akumatized, but Mr. Agreste still gives me the creeps, and he was super-interested in my earrings when I was there as Ladybug when Jackady was after him. I didn't like that."

"I didn't like it, either. It's just weird that he has that book _and_ he noticed the earrings." Tikki was frowning. "But what can you do about it, Marinette?"

Marinette frowned. Almost on instinct, she glanced around her desk, looking for something she could use. Her eyes fell on a page of stickers that Manon had forgotten the last time she was over, and Marinette's eyes lit up for a moment. "Oh! I could cover the earrings, to make it look like I'm wearing different ones!" And then she paused and groaned. "Oh, wait, no, that wouldn't work. The stickers wouldn't come off nicely and they would tear and look funny, and even if they _did_ go on and come off nicely, they would probably wrinkle on the earrings and look cheap, and _then_ people would _really_ notice my earrings and figure that I might be trying to hide something, which I _am-_ "

"But you might be onto something with the covered earrings," Tikki suggested. "Could you use fabric, maybe, and cinch it over the earrings? To make it look like you have fabric-covered earrings instead? And maybe you could even decorate the fabric somehow."

Marinette frowned. "Maybe. It could look a bit messy, though. I'd probably have to do a lot of fiddling to do to make it fit really well. Maybe I should try to buy a regular pair of earrings that look exactly the same so I can do fittings on those first, so I don't have to have the Miraculous off for long."

Plan made, Marinette and Tikki headed out. But even after several hours of searching, they hadn't had any luck finding an exact replica of the Ladybug Miraculous. They didn't care about the pattern, of course, but all of the earrings in the stores were a little too domed, or too flat, or too small, or too big.

"This is ridiculous," Marinette grumbled as she put back a too-large earring. It wasn't _much_ bigger than the Miraculous, but she needed it to be _exactly_ the same for it to work as a model. "I've looked _everywhere_. Seriously, I'm tempted to just make a mold of these earrings and make a model from that. At this rate, it would take less time."

Tikki blinked up at her from her collar. "Do you know how to do that, Marinette?"

"Uh-huh! I had to do something similar for a class project last year." Marinette headed out of the department store and started hurrying towards an art shop. "I have some of the supplies for the mold left over, but I think I need more of the stuff for making the model earring. Besides, I might get ideas from some of the stuff in the art store."

"I like going there," Tikki commented, snuggling down in Marinette's collar wo get out of the wind. "It's fun to see what kinds of things people can make!"

"There _is_ a lot of stuff," Marinette agreed as she entered the store. Her voice immediately dropped to a whisper. "I spend most of my time in the fabric store nowadays, but it _is_ good to come back and see if anything here inspires me."

"Would they maybe have earrings in here?" Tikki asked, poking her head back up now that they were indoors. "They would be cheap, but maybe you could alter them to be more like your Miraculous."

Marinette made a face. "Oh, I don't know. I've never _seen_ earrings here, but I suppose we could check."

So they did. Marinette and Tikki cruised up and down the aisles, looking at everything in the store, but they didn't find any earrings of the right type. Marinette picked up the stuff she needed for her mock-Miraculous four rows in, and spent most of the rest of her time answering Tikki's questions.

"What's water-soluble glue?" Tikki wanted to know as they perused the aisle of glues. Marinette abandoned the sticks of hot-gun glue (she would need more soon, but her supply wasn't _quite_ out yet and she hadn't been using much lately) to come join Tikki. "Does that mean it falls apart when it gets wet? What's the point of that?"

"It tends to be for stuff that isn't meant to last, I think," Marinette said. She picked up a bottle. "Or if they're working with kids. It's easier to clean up."

"Why would you make something meant to fall apart?" Tikki asked, her little brow furrowed. "That doesn't make _sense_."

Marinette couldn't help but laugh. "I think some performers use it to stick stuff to their faces- you know, jewels and fake hair- and then they can just wash it off afterwards. Oh!" she suddenly exclaimed. "I could use glue like that to stick something to the earrings! Then when I want to transform, I just dip it in water really fast and get the decoration off!"

Tikki gasped. "Oh! Yeah, that would be nice! But Marinette," she added, "you _have_ to remember to take whatever decoration you have off before you transform. If you don't, the magic will just burn it off. That would be good for getting rid of the leftover glue, but it would destroy anything else you put on the earring."

Marinette was already digging through the different water-soluble glues, comparing uses and strengths. She picked out two to experiment with, looking pleased as she did. "I'll just have to carry a bit of water with me, then. And some glue, so I can put the earrings back together after fights." She was grinning now. "This will be so much _fun_."

* * *

Marinette soon discovered that getting the idea and finding the glue were the easy parts. She really couldn't just slap sequins or other decorations on her earrings and call it a day, because that would cheap and awful and it would be a _pain_ to try to put everything back together after an akuma fight ended.

No, she had to make _covers_ that could have the decorations embedded in them, and then those covers could be glued onto her Miraculous to hide them. And _that_ was difficult.

The first step was, of course, to make a mold of the Miraculous so that she could fit the covers exactly without having to use her Miraculous every time. Tikki hovered over her shoulder anxiously as Marinette made the casts around the Miraculous, worried about the earrings getting damaged. Once the casts were poured and were drying, she spent the drying time anxiously zipping between the earrings and the window, worried about an akuma showing up while the Miraculous weren't in Marinette's ears.

Marinette tried not to giggle at her kwami's antics as she worked on her homework. She had deliberately chosen the late hour to work on this particular project because Hawkmoth only rarely made akuma this late. She hadn't wanted to be interrupted, because the cast material would be ruined if she had to yank the earrings out to transform.

The cast finished drying overnight and her Miraculous came out easily, much to Tikki's relief. While the kwami took a much-needed nap, Marinette poured the material that would eventually become her fake Miraculous earrings. That had to dry for even longer. While it dried, Marinette _planned._

She had originally wanted to use some of her old earrings in the new covers- she had made some while others were gifts, and it would be a shame to never wear them again- but that would be too difficult for now. She would have to hollow them out somehow before ever turning them into covers and, well...

She doesn't have the tools _or_ the steady hand with said tools necessary to do that. So she'll have to content herself with making completely new designs.

(That was fine, of course. Now that she was actually _thinking_ about designing earrings, Marinette's found that she is absolutely _bursting_ with ideas based on her summer outfits. She just finished that gold summer dress? White earrings with gold glitter swirled through them would be perfect! The blue embroidered tank top that matches her eyes? Okay, she can just copy the embroidery pattern in the earring cover! That Jagged Stone-style outfit with the leather vest and fishnet tights that she kept designing and re-designing in her sketchbook? If she could make a cover that was shaped like some sort of cool tooth like a lion or a shark, that would be _amazing_.)

Her first few earring covers didn't turn out very well. The material kept getting bubbles stuck in it, and it was only after a few tries that Marinette thought to whack the cast like her father whacked his macarons to get the air bubbles out of the batter. That worked perfectly, and from there on out it was smooth sailing.

Mostly. She was still struggling a bit with the tooth idea.

"I'm not gonna wear the covers _every_ day, obviously," Marinette told Tikki as she sanded down the rough edges on the first earring cover. "It would be weird if I just suddenly switched over to suddenly wearing a different pair of earrings every day after wearing the same pair every day for most of the year. So I thought that I would change for the first time when I wear something a little fancier than usual."

As it turned out, the perfect opportunity came up only a week later. Alya was having her birthday party and Marinette wore one of her new dresses. She spent longer than she should have making sure that the glittery cover was firmly attached to her Miraculous, and Tikki had finally had to start slapping Marinette's fingers away every time they started inching up towards her ears.

"You put _plenty_ of glue on, Marinette," Tikki said with a sigh. "Stop fiddling with them!"

"It was only a thin layer, though!" Marinette protested. "Because I didn't want the glue squishing out the side and showing up! And if it falls off then it'll attract even _more_ attention and people will wonder why I'm hiding my regular earrings instead of wearing completely different ones."

Tikki just sighed.

"I mean, at least there should be plenty of surface area in contact with the glue since I made it off a model of the Miraculous," Marinette continued, her voice moving dangerously towards babble-range. "But it's not a _lot_ of glue, and I didn't really have a chance to test how strong it was, and maybe I should have tried gluing it to my model first before I actually wore it out and about because what if it's not a very good glue? What if it rains? What if-"

"Marinette! Are you leaving for Alya's party soon?"

"It's time to go, Marinette! Grab your present and stop worrying so much!" Tikki zipped across the room and pushed against Alya's present on the desk. It didn't budge. Downstairs, Sabine called again. "And stop _fiddling_ with it, or you'll actually make it loose!"

Marinette groaned, pulled her hand away from her earrings, grabbed Alya's present, and tore off down the stairs. It didn't take long at all for her to get over to Alya's apartment. Music was already floating down the hallway when Marinette let herself in.

"Hey, Marinette!" Adrien called from where he was chatting with Nino. His eyes dropped to her dress and he grinned. "Did you design that, Marinette? It's gorgeous!"

Marinette couldn't help the rush of heat that filled her cheeks, but she managed what she _hoped_ was a relatively normal smile and a "Thanks!"

Her voice might not have been in the human hearing range, but at least she _tried_.

Adrien came practically _bounding_ over to her to greet her properly and look her dress. It was pink and white and Marinette was very, _very_ proud of how it had come out. She held her ground as he circled around her, inspecting the dress.

"I love all of the embroidery you've done, Marinette!" Adrien told her. "It's absolutely gorgeous. And- oh!" he exclaimed, leaning closer. "And your earrings match! Did you make those, too?"

Marinette nodded, taking a moment to try to get her voice back. She would _never_ get used to Adrien's compliments, _especially_ not when he got so close to her as he complimented her. He didn't exactly have a good concept of personal space, but she wasn't about to start complaining. "Uh, yeah! I did! I wanted to match."

"That's _amazing_ that you figured out how to do that," Adrien told her, reaching out for a moment towards her earrings before pulling his hand back when she flinched back slightly. "I wouldn't have any idea where to start. And they're so sparkly!"

Marinette grinned. She had positively packed these particular Miraculous covers with pink glitter, and thankfully the material she was using for the cover didn't dull the sparkle _too_ much. She was rather proud of her work.

"Did I hear you say that you're making earrings now, Marinette?" Alya appeared at her side and pushed Marinette's hair aside to look at her earrings. "Oh, those are cute!"

"Happy birthday, Alya!" Marinette half-sang as way of response. She pushed the present into her friend's arms. Now that the "different" earrings had been noticed, she didn't really want people inspecting them too closely. Tikki had said that it looked fine, but Marinette was still a _tiny_ bit paranoid. "Great party!"

"You haven't even seen the best parts yet!" Alya grinned at her, tugging at Marinette's hand. "Come on, come on, come see the cake your parents made for me! It's so cool!"

* * *

Marinette couldn't help but grin as she stepped back into her room. Alya's party had been _awesome_ (if a little cramped- that apartment was _not_ meant to hold that many people), and just as she had hoped, people had noticed her "new" earrings. They hadn't stayed a topic of conversation for long- Rose had asked how she had made them, Marinette had briefly explained, and that was it after that- but it was a good start. If anyone in her class had been thinking that she was Ladybug just based off the fact that she wore the same earrings all the time, they would now be thrown off.

Marinette was so caught up in her own success that she almost missed the screaming.

"An akuma attack this late?" she complained. "Tikki-!"

"You have to remove the covers!" Tikki reminded her as she floated out of Marinette's purse. "The akuma can wait for a minute!"

Marinette groaned and pulled one earring out as she poured water from her water bottle onto a shallow bowl on her desk she dunked the earring a few times and then tugged on the cover.

It didn't budge.

Okay, so maybe it needed to soak a little first. Marinette tugged out the other earring and dunked it in as well. She went back to the first earring, positive that it would be unglued by now.

It wasn't.

"I must have put too much on!" Marinette said frantically as she tugged at the cover. "It's totally stuck!"

"Keep it in for longer!"

Marinette sent a frantic glance at the window. The screaming was getting closer, and now there were car horns and screeching tires as well. "There's no time! You said that the covers wouldn't affect the magic, right? That they would just get destroyed?"

Tikki blinked up at her. "But all that hard work-!"

"I can make another set, it's not that hard. But I have to transform _right now_ , before the akuma gets too close!" Marinette pulled her Miraculous out of the water and stuck them in her ears. There was an unpleasant sticky feeling to them now, probably from the glue around the edges starting to dissolve, but it would probably go away once she transformed, burned off by the magic. She gave the covers one last hopeful tug (she didn't _really_ want them destroyed if it could be helped) before calling for Tikki again. "Tikki! Transform me!"

* * *

Hawkmoth's latest akuma, like so many of the ones that had come before it, wasn't particularly impressive. It didn't take long for Ladybug and Chat Noir to defeat it, and then they were doing their traditional fist bump under a streetlight. Ladybug was about to yo-yo away when Chat Noir's hand on her arm stopped her. She turned around to ask what he wanted, and froze when she saw how close he was. Chat Noir didn't seem to notice, intent on trying to fish something out of her hair with clawed fingers.

"Chat Noir?" What are you doing?"

"Sorry," Chat Noir said immediately, taking a small step back and holding his hands up. "There's just been something sparkling in your hair for the entire fight, and I was just curious about what it was. Do you have glitter in your hair?"

Ladybug blinked, surprised. Glitter in her hair? She puzzled over that for a moment, then realized what her partner must be talking about. The glitter must have been the surviving remainders of her earring covers. She had kind of assumed that Tikki's warning about the covers getting "destroyed" meant totally vaporized, but shattered into dozens and dozens of tiny little pieces made sense, too. Of course, she couldn't _say_ that to Chat Noir, or he might use the information to somehow accidentally discover her identity. "Glitter? I- yeah, actually, I was, ah, babysitting earlier tonight, and the kid spilled glitter all over me. It was a mess."

Chat Noir just laughed at that. "Poor bugaboo. Good luck getting that out." He grinned, reaching over and ruffling her hair until she ducked away. "But don't _purr_ -y too much if it doesn't. Glitter suits you."

Ladybug couldn't help but laugh. Chat Noir was absolutely incorrigible sometimes. "If you say so, kitty cat. If you say so."

* * *

After what had happened with the first set of covers, Marinette decided to be more cautious. She experimented with amounts of glue over the weekend, starting with as little as possible and working upwards in little tweaks, trying to find that sweet spot where she had enough glue to make sure that the earrings would stay on securely during the day but a small enough amount that it could be dissolved and the cover removed fairly quickly and with not too much water when there was an akuma attack.

As it turned out, the thin covers _really_ didn't need much. All Marinette had to do was draw on a light smear of glue all the way around the edge and then hold the cover on for a minute to get them to stay on. She had tested it overnight with success, and it really only needed a little bit of water and a couple of seconds to get the glue to loosen enough to come apart. It still left her Miraculous sticky and gross until she transformed and the glue burned off, but that really wasn't a huge problem. Her earrings didn't need to submerged in water anymore to get the cover off, which made transforming quickly easier but also meant that she couldn't wear the covers whenever it was raining. If she did, they might loosen and fall off when Marinette didn't intend for them to.

That was fine with Marinette. She could wear her Miraculous plain some days without a problem. She just didn't want that to be the only way she ever wore them.

Soon the rest of the class got used to her wearing different earrings several days a week. Alya teased Marinette a bit about her apparent attachment to her "plain old boring black earrings" occasionally, but otherwise people stopped really paying attention to them.

After all, an aspiring fashion designer wearing earrings that matched her outfits was hardly strange. It had been weirder when she _didn't_ match them to what she was wearing.

Master Fu was the only one who didn't agree.

The old Guardian did a double-take as soon as Marinette sat down in front of him. She had chosen to wear her blue tank top that day, and the bright blue earrings with the gold patterning were fairly visible. Marinette beamed at her mentor as she pulled Tikki out so she could play with Wayazz. "Hi, Master Fu! You said that you had news for me?

"I do," Master Fu agreed, looking disapproving. "But that can wait. Marinette, I thought you would know better than to remove your Miraculous! And Tikki- why haven't you said anything about it?"

Both Tikki and Marinette blinked at Master Fu in confused unison. "...what?"

"You are wearing earrings that aren't the Miraculous," Master Fu reminded Marinette somewhat testily. "I understand that the Miraculous are rather plain when they aren't active and it might be tempting to wear other earrings when you aren't fighting an akuma, but it's dangerous to not be wearing them at all times. It would be _far_ too easy for one or both to get lost, and then Paris would be in trouble."

Marinette blinked, then realized what was going on. _Oh._

"I _am_ wearing the Miraculous, Master Fu," she assured him. She reached up to tap her covered earrings. "I've just covered them to make it look like I'm wearing different earrings. I thought it would be a good idea, so that people wouldn't think that I'm wearing the same pair of earrings day after day."

"It's very clever," Tikki chimed in, twirling around Marinette's head. "She made little covers to go on top of the Miraculous, and then she glues them on with- what was that glue called, Marinette?"

"Water soluble glue," Marinette reminded her.

Tikki nodded frantically. "Yeah! So then when she has to transform, she just gets the glue wet and the cover comes right off. It's super-cool."

"I see," said Master Fu, who still looked rather puzzled.

"My best friend runs the Ladyblog," Marinette explained, shifting in her seat a bit anxiously. She really hoped that the old Guardian wouldn't tell her to stop wearing the covers, because she was pretty certain that that would draw even _more_ unwanted attention to her Miraculous. "So she knows a _ton_ about Ladybug. And we were worried that she might make a connection between Ladybug's Miraculous and the fact that I'm always wearing the same pair of earrings, even though I want to be a designer and I make other jewelry all the time."

Master Fu chuckled at that. "Yes, I can see where you might want to throw her off of your trail. The Ladyblogger _does_ seem the inquisitive sort. And you certainly tricked me, and I know very well what those earrings look like. I never would have guessed that they were simply covered."

"It _does_ look very professional," Wayazz agreed from right next to Marinette's ear, and she yelped and jumped. She hadn't seen him come up to investigate more closely. "You're very creative and talented. A perfect Ladybug."

"I'm lucky that the earrings are easy to cover," Marinette admitted, shuffling back onto the cushion that she had fallen off of when Wayazz startled her. "They're small and don't really have a distinct shape to them, like your bracelet does."

"Yes, it is harder to hide," Master Fu agreed easily. "Thankfully no one will question an old man wearing an old turtle bracelet from his home country, especially since I have not been active for many years." He smiled. "But I can see where it might be difficult for others to hid their Miraculous. Some in the past have been forced to wear scarves or clothing with high necks to conceal their Miraculous from view."

"Like the fox Miraculous?"

Master Fu beamed. "Exactly! That one is a rather distinctive shape, I think you'll agree, even when it's not in use. Most holders simply tuck it down the front of their shirts. The butterfly, from what I've heard, changes the most. It simply looks like a plain button when its holder is not transformed."

At the mention of the butterfly Miraculous, Marinette sat up straight. "Is that what you called me here to discuss, sir? The butterfly Miraculous?"

"It is." Fu smiled at her again. "I have discovered some important information that I must share with you. I think you will find it of interest."

* * *

Marinette couldn't deny that she was a bit nervous to go over to Adrien's house for their group study session for finals. Master Fu's words rang through her head over and over, reminding her that Mr. Agreste could still potentially be Hawkmoth and they couldn't exclude him from their suspicions. She was nervous to be near him again, though this time she wouldn't be alone. Nino and Alya were both coming to the study session as well, and there was a fairly good possibility that they wouldn't see Mr. Agreste at all.

"Still, you have to take advantage of this opportunity, Marinette!" Tikki said as soon as Marinette mentioned hoping that Mr. Agreste would stay in his office. "If he _is_ Hawkmoth, then you want him to see your earrings when they're disguised! Then if he suspects you, that will throw him off. When else are you going to get that chance?"

Marinette gasped. "Oh! You're right, Tikki, that _is_ a great idea! And you know what earrings would be perfect?"

"Er...no?"

"My lion tooth ones!" Marinette pounced on her jewelry case of earring covers and dug through them. "They aren't shaped at _all_ like the Miraculous. I'll need to use a little extra glue to make sure they stay on so they might be hard to get off if there's an akuma attack, but I think it'll be worth it."

Tikki blinked at her. "Uh, Marinette- but those earrings don't go with your outfit!"

Marinette shrugged. "Then I'll change. The earrings would go pretty well with that tank top I tie-dyed, I think. And I'll put my hair up, too, so it's easier to see the earrings."

One frenzied change of clothes, a quick but careful gluing session and several braids later, Marinette was packing up her bag to head over to Adrien's house. She was pretty pleased with the results of her frantic last-minute scramble. The earrings were hard to miss with her hair all pulled up into a messy braided crown, and with her hair up like that she didn't look as much like Ladybug as usual.

Of course, it would be even more of a pain than usual to get everything switched back if there was an akuma, but such was the price of keeping her secret identity _secret._

"Ooh, I love your hair!" Alya squealed as soon as she and Nino spotted Marinette. The two of them were waiting near the walls around the Agreste Mansion. "You should put it up like that more often, it's _adorable!_ "

"I don't have the time to do anything fancy like this most days," Marinette said with a laugh. "But I had the time today and it's so hot, I didn't want my hair anywhere near my neck."

"It does look pretty fab," Nino agreed. "Okay, are we ready to go in? Adrien said he would tell Nathalie about our study group so she wouldn't try to question us." A pause. "But I'm not gonna do it. Mr. Agreste probably still doesn't like me much."

"Also not it," Marinette blurted immediately, remembering the last time she had seen Mr. Agreste. He hadn't been particularly happy with her, though at least he hadn't yelled at her to get out of the house like he had the first time he met Nino. "Alya, you do it."

Alya groaned and grumbled, but went up and pressed the intercom button anyway. Seconds later, the gates were opening and all three of them headed up towards the house.

"Remind me again why we aren't meeting literally _anywhere_ else," Nino grumbled as they headed up the steps. "I'm gonna be all tense worrying that Mr. Agreste is gonna burst in and demand that I leave. Couldn't we go to Marinette's place instead?"

"My place is _way_ too hot," Marinette pointed out. "The heat from outside _plus_ all of the heat from the bakery? Fans can only do so much to make it a little more tolerable."

"And my little sisters are at home a lot, and they would just bug us nonstop," Alya added. "And _your_ family's apartment is crazy hot, and the library is packed right now with everyone studying for finals. Plus, then we can take breaks if we're studying at Adrien's house."

"You say that as if it possible that Nathalie won't be sticking her head in every ten minutes making sure that we're staying on track." Nino paused at the door, knocked, then pushed it open. Adrien met them inside with a wide grin.

Behind him, Nathalie glowered at the group of them as they piled in. Mr. Agreste wasn't there, thankfully, but his assistant had his disapproving look down to a T.

"I will be checking in with you regularly," Nathalie informed them. "If you need snacks, let me know. If you need a short break, let me know first. I don't want to come in to find you messing around."

"Of course, Nathalie." Undaunted, Adrien beamed at his friends and gestured for them to follow him as he headed up the stairs towards his room. "All right, come on! I thought we'd start with Literature first and get that out of the way first, and then we can do a harder class, and then an easier one. That way we don't get super-frustrated with it."

"That sounds like a good idea," Alya agreed. She gaped as Adrien waved her into his room. "Holy hell, Agreste, your room is _insane!_ "

"It's ridiculous, isn't it?" Nino agreed. "And freakishly clean, too."

"It was worse before I got to go to school and I spent most of the day in here," Adrien assured them. "Now I'm too busy to make too much of a mess in here."

"That makes no sense," Alya complained, already poking around Adrien's wall of games. "I'm busy, and my room is an actual _disaster zone_."

"When I'm busy, I'm not in my room," Adrien pointed out. "And I'm naturally pretty neat, I think. I don't like having to dig through a ton of stuff to find things I need." He pointed to a table in the middle of the room with four chairs around it. "Nathalie had that brought in so we could study better, since my desk doesn't have enough space for all of us."

"We could have just studied on the floor, you know," Nino said, but he sat down at the table regardless and started pulling out his books. "But that's pretty nice of her to get this all set up for us."

"It was," Adrien agreed, grinning. Then his smile slid over to Marinette and he grinned. "And Marinette! Is that something you designed again? It looks fabulous!"

"My girl is too talented," Alya agreed. "You are _rocking_ that outfit, Mari."

It didn't take them long to get down to work, mostly because of the threat of Nathalie checking in hanging over their heads. They took a short break two hours in, and then a longer one after three hours.

"My brain is turning to mush," Nino complained as they trudged their way through the last few Physics problems. Adrien was the only one who didn't look like he was in pain. "Gosh, I can't wait until all of the tests are over with and we can relax again."

"I can't wait until summer," Alya agreed. "The only problem is gonna be that I'll have to take care of my sisters a bunch then, and how am I supposed to do that and go after Ladybug and Chat Noir when there's akuma attacks? It's a pain. My parents won't let me drag the twins along when I go after the akumas, and they don't run fast enough anyway. They'd just get in the way."

"Gee, I wonder why," Adrien muttered to Marinette, making her giggle. "It's almost like it's dangerous to get too close to akumas!"

"I heard that, Agreste," Alya threatened. "Are you volunteering to watch my sisters for me, then?"

Adrien looked suddenly panicked. "I- me? _Babysit_? No, no, that would be a terrible idea, I don't know how to deal with kids-"

"I was kidding," Alya told him flatly. "I wouldn't trust you to be able to handle them. They would probably run you over and then tie your hair up in a million little braids." A pause. "Actually, I would pay to see that. Hey, Adrien, do you want-?"

" _No_."

"But I could leave a bunch of pink ribbons with you guys, so they could end the braids in pretty little bows-"

" _No._ "

"Adrien, I need help with the last problem," Nino said before Alya could keep teasing Adrien. "And Alya, stop distracting him. It's almost dinner and we're gonna have to leave soon, and I want to have this done before we get kicked out."

A few minutes later, the four of them were piling out of Adrien's room and down the stairs, completed homework packed away in their bags.. Nathalie and Mr. Agreste were both waiting for them there.

"Ah, I was wondering when you were going to finish," Gabriel commented as they all came to a stop halfway down the stairs. "Will you be getting together again before your tests?"

"Yeah, definitely," Adrien said, glancing at the rest of them for confirmation. They all nodded and his face lit up with a grin. "It definitely helps to study as a group, I think."

Mr. Agreste nodded. "Yes, well, they _do_ say that teaching others helps you remember things. Perhaps next time they can stay for dinner for a longer study session." He glanced at the group of them again. "Perhaps Monday evening? You don't have any commitments after school that day."

"I think so," Adrien agreed, glancing around at the rest of them. They all nodded again.

"But for now, it is time for them to go." Mr. Agreste stepped back so they could pass. His eyes skimmed over them again, though they seemed to pause on Marinette for a moment. She tried not to react, refusing to flinch back under his gaze. A second later, Mr. Agreste's attention was back on Adrien and Marinette tried not to let out a sigh of relief.

If he _was_ Hawkmoth, then hopefully he would be completely thrown off her trail. If not, then maybe he was just taking note of her fashion sense. She hoped- mostly for Adrien's sake- that it was the latter.

Marinette hurried home as soon as the gate in front of the Agreste Mansion closed behind her, Nino, and Alya. Her parents had already sat down to dinner by the time she joined them, and she told them about the study session as they ate and cleaned up.

"I notice that you cleaned up nicely for this study session of yours," Tom teased her as he washed their dishes and Marinette dried. "Hoping to impress someone?"

Marinette turned pink immediately. "N-no! It was just my coolest outfit, that's all. It was just so hot today. And I wanted to try something different. I wasn't trying to _impress_ anyone, why would you think that?"

Tom just chuckled.

Right after the last dish was cleaned, the TV lit up with an akuma alert. Marinette made a fast excuse about needing to do a little more studying, endured a little more teasing ("Ah, she wants to impress someone with her study preparation!"), said good-night to her parents, and fled upstairs.

"Ugh, I liked it better when I could just transform right away," Marinette grumbled as she sprayed her earrings with the small spray bottle she always kept in her purse and then started yanking her hair out of its braid. "Imagine if I had to do this and then fix it after during a school day? I'd be missing from class for forever- ouch! Knot!"

Tikki giggled. "As if you aren't already gone for ages for some of the attacks! But yes, I think you should save the fancy hair for days when people won't notice if you're gone for a few minutes more."

"Yeah. But at least doing the earring covers isn't _awful._ It's worth it, I know it. It'll help protect my identity even more." Marinette twined one bunch of hair into a pigtail before reaching for the other side. Her pigtails were a little uneven, but it wasn't worth the time or effort to fix them. She doused her earrings again, cringing against the spray, and then tugged the tooth covers off with a sharp tug. Tossing them to the desk, she spun around to face Tikki, Miraculous exposed and gleaming in the lamplight.

"Okay, I'm ready! _Tikki, transform me!_ "

* * *

 _A/N:This was actually originally inspired when I heard a zillion people on Tumblr screaming about how "oh Mr. Agreste knows about Marinette yadda yadda yadda!" and I basically went "okay, then how could she throw him off?  
_

 _(it turned out that the people screaming about that were probably the same people who were positive that Adrien knew about Marinette after Antibug. Clearly parts of the fandom are just easily overexcited.)_

 _As with most of my stories, this is a one-shot and is therefore complete! Please reviews, they really make my day!  
_


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